Emily Dickinson blog, Dec 9

For this last blog post, I give you a short prompt:

Emily Dickinson's poetry: deceptively simple OR simply deceptive? Which one, and why? 300 words.

blogs of grass, dec 4

For this blog, I want you to get inside the formal poetic fabric of Whitman's Song of Myself. Take 1-3 strophes that you found really compelling and inviting as you read the piece. While it is true that Whitman is renowned for his Free Verse poetry, this does not mean that there aren't many poetic forms functioning within his poetry. He does not write with regular end rhyme or meter, but he does deploy assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, alliteration, etc. We'll refresh some of these terms before you do the reading, and then I want you to deploy them as you write your 300-word blog on the strophe(s) that you've chosen.

Another Melville Re-Mediation

Here it is: Emoji Dick

Projecting Benito Cereno

Here are the links to your truly inspired and admirable projects: http://captaindelanoposts.tumblr.com/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDxyLhLCpxw And on Twitter: Usernames: BenitoCereno55 captain_delano babolicious55 Password: benitocereno123 "Babo's Song" coming soon...

Douglass blog for Nov 18

For your 400-word blog on Douglass, you have a few options. You might compare the slave drivers he describes. How do they differ? Why would Douglass show this range of slave drivers? How does Douglass use "beast" and other animal terms to articulate his argument against slavery? Can you put this into conversation with Carpentier's uses of animal imagery? How does Douglass deploy geography, what we might call "social geography," in his writing to analyze slavery in the USA? Please post before class on Monday.

The Pond in Winter

For this blog, you have to do a little research inside and outside. Inside research is to see what you can learn of the history of Lindeman Pond. How long has it been here? Why is it here? What does it do in the ecosystem? These are questions to encourage you, but you don't need to answer them all. Outside research is to go to the Pond. Hang out, stand on your head, close your eyes, open your nose, touch it, look into it at it on it--all it contains and all it reflects. Then write: 350-450 words. See if you can put your inside and outside research into conversation as you write as a way of understanding Thoreau's technique. Please post before Monday's class.

Emerson Blog, Due 13 Nov.

Now that you've created one or more Emerson-text-based inspirational posters, I'd like you to write a 250-350 word reflective blog on one of them. Please write about how the poster does capture a spirit of Emerson. Explain your understanding of this spirit of Emerson and how the image and the image-plus-text-dynamic embody it. ALSO, I want you to explain how the poster misses some of the complexity that is in the context out of which you pulled your quote. Emerson's one-liners are embedded and enmeshed in the paragraph, in the multi-paragraph chunk, and the text as a whole. You don't need to address all 3 of these contextual strata, but I do want you to talk about at least one to show how the posterification of Emerson does lose something.

Next blog writing, due Oct 16

For this blog post, please write 350-450 words on The Kingdom of this World. In particular, I want you to focus on how Carpentier is using sex to get readers to interrogate the power structures between the French colonists and the African slaves. Try to re-read the sex power dynamics on the island before the big revolutionary moment and its ensuing sexual components.

A bit of Franklinia from this rad site.

BF is your new BFF

Apparently Benjamin Franklin tattoos are a phenomenon, which makes sense given his strong engagement with self and text, including ink. For this blog post, please draw from 2 of Franklin's texts to talk about what he says and/or formally does to bring sense of Self together with Text/Textuality in striking ways. As usual, approx 300 words.

Francofication of Literature

Likely many of you have seen this already, but if not...

Hawthorne Blog for Monday, Sept 23

One of the reasons people write historical fiction is to revisit time periods and events that defined a nation. In particular, such historical literature re-opens those times and events for investigation and analysis--in other words, Hawthorne's stories break up the American mythology/ies into which Puritan history had become ossified. His stories helped people examine the solid foundations of the past as well as the traumas that seemed still to haunt Americans. For this blog, spend some time writing about ways that Hawthorne's stories re-frame elements that we've seen depicted in Bradford, Morton, Winthrop, etc. Keep your quoting to Hawthorne since I want this writing to focus on his work, but feel free to make reference to the other texts.

Yelping with Cormac McCarthy

Follow this link to a concept-site that imagines Cormac McCarthy, the American novelist, writing Yelp reviews. One more inspiration for the group projects you'll be doing this semester.

Two Tales of a Maypole, due 9.18

Now that you've read Morton, please post a 250-350 word writing that compares Bradford's and Morton's writings. Please aim for a bit of close reading in this, by which I mean, please attend to specific language in 1-2 passages in each writer's work as you make claims about them. You might want to focus on how the writer's come across as people and how the writing fits into and/or undermines the purposes they seem to have for writing these accounts in the first place. Please post by 10am, Wednesday, September 18th.

John Smith

Early American Literature: It's so hot right now!

Abuela Grillo

If you're interested in different media depictions of the Water Wars, here's an amazing animated film called Abuela Grillo.

First Blog!

Hi American Literatureans! For your first informal writing, to be posted on your own blog, please take 250-350 words to start synthesizing the written texts we will have just read for the "Spanish conquests and encounters" unit and the film, Tambien la Lluvia (Even the Rain). You might choose to compare one person's text with the representations of him in the film. You might choose to compare approaches to the non-human world in a writing and the film. Or, you might choose something entirely different from these. Regardless of your choice, please work hard to put the two texts into conversation. Please post your writing by 9:30am, Wednesday, Sept 11.